MQA is Vaporware

[Daren F]

RecordingsNugs.Net Opens the Floodgates to Live Hi-Res Recordings

Source - https://www.soundandvision.com/content/nugsnet-opens-floodgates-live-hi-res-recordings

 

According to this graphic, MQA is superior to FLAC-HD.

[Daren F]

45 minutes ago, Don Blas De Lezo said:

 If Tidal offered to pay me 50 bucks cash monthly to use it and Qobuz doubled their price , I would still stick with Qobuz easily .  I'll put sound quality and morals above saving a few bucks any day. 

 

I had a student discount for Tidal Hi-Fi that cost me CA$9.99 per month. I canceled my account because I don't want to support this MQA nonsense. Qobuz isn't available in Canada but I was able to get a French account. I pay CA$23.00 per month (paid annually) for qobuz and the premium is well worth it.

 

[Daren F]

10 minutes ago, firedog said:

Morals and bucks discussions don't make a lot of sense without know each participants level of disposable income. One person's insignificant amount is significant for another.

 

I don't disagree with what you're saying but, 40% off of $20.00 is $14.29. About the same price as a qobuz account.

[Daren F]

There's a thread at the RME forum where a user(s) is requesting MQA be added to RME's DACs. RME said no but there are some who are still in the dark regarding MQA.

 

This thread was mentioned there however, one user thinks it's funny to refer to a thread with 866 pages.

 

Thread here https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=28204 if anyone with more technical experience than me wants to set them straight.

[Daren F]

15 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

you can always send them to archi’s article here - https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/

 

 

Was hoping @KeenObserver might use some of his MQA Meat Grinder analogy 😆

[Daren F]

2 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

It's not a short read, however the full technical debunking details, and the argument for why MQA is bad for all aspects of the music creation and delivery system (excepting themselves and the greedy record labels) is all there if you parse through it. This is why I can't accept your "it's quite simple" statement, not when it's your very first post here. You seem to be missing or ignoring a ton of details in your assessment.

 

 

This tread needs an executive summary. Something straight and to the point outlining just the facts. A list of bullet points.

 

Then, whenever someone comes along preaching the gospel about MQA, a simple referral to the summary is available.

 

This tread is probably the most comprehensive source of factual information about MQA on the internet. Unfortunately, it's way too long to actually be educational at this point.

[Daren F]

16 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

 

The problem is that so many claims were made and so many carefully crafted repudiations were posted that it would take many pages to post.

Right from the beginning MQA was making claims and hiding them behind carefully orchestrated " demonstrations".

MQA was all smoke and mirrors right from the beginning.

And the whole cycle seems to be starting again.

 

Problem is that no one new is going to read through a thread with 21K+ posts. Every time someone new comes along (as you say) the whole cycle starts again. There's nothing left to be said that hasn't already been said ad nauseum. 

 

When a MQA supporter on another forum was directed to this thread the response was "If you're serious about sound quality, attempt a rigorous ABX comparison with an MQA DAC instead of reading endless internet forum claptrap".

 

The MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions article is very good however it was written in 2018. It's also a long read, out dated and IIRC, doesn't mention anything about the batch conversion of CD quality FLAC to lossy MQA CD. 

 

Fake news is still being spread. Came across this Wired trash piece a couple days ago. Best music streaming service for audiophiles - Tidal. 

 

A summary at the beginning of this thread, similar (but shorter) to the A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming thread would be very useful as an educational tool. The length of this tread scares people off. Few read it so few will learn from it.

 

 

[Daren F]

13 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Then I would need to pay for a VPN service and get an American issued credit card.

 

Here's some info on how to get a US account in unsupported countries - LINK

 

I haven't tried it myself. I was fortunate to get a French account back when qobuz would remove the geo-restrictions.

[Daren F]

1 minute ago, lucretius said:

 

I've seen similar instructions like this before for signing up to other geo-restricted services.  I don't want Qobuz bad enough to go through this amount of effort.

 

I agree, it's a PITA.

[Daren F]

8 hours ago, firedog said:

Agree. But my guess is the CD tier will continue to stream "MQA-CD" as it does now. That will probably just help Qobuz ,Deezer, and Spotify CD tier a bit.

 

There's been so many lies and falsehoods I don't know if anything Tidal or MQA say can be believed anymore but, this is a recent screen shot from Tidal.com and they are advertising that the Hi-Fi tier is lossless FLAC at 1411 Kbps.

 

 

[Daren F]

13 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

 

They are using MQA Limited's trick of claiming that MQA is lossless because they are shipping it in a FLAC container. If you happen to select an MQA labelled track for streaming, the HiFi quality connection sources that very same MQA track for the stream - it does not magically provide a lossless version in its place:

- If it's an MQA-CD track then it streams unhindered;

- if it's a 24-bit MQA track then its bit depth is truncated to16 bits;

- if the MQA track's (undecoded) sample rate is 48kHz then it's downsampled to 44.1kHz.

 

The track will be lossless only if you have selected a true lossless CD-res track, ie, one that isn't labelled as MQA - not many of those left on TIDAL.

 

So, same shit different day. Thought that this may be something new based on their HiFi tier launched in Australia.

[Daren F]

3 hours ago, firedog said:

Sure, but it doesn't say that it will exclusively lossless. So it will be a lossless tier except for the lossy MQA CD. Just like the "master" tier.  Note how the description of the Master tier if basically a lie. 

 

In Canada this false advertising is a violation of Canadian Competition Law.

[Daren F]

1 hour ago, StephenJK said:

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but don’t think that Tidal are necessarily culpable in this whole mess. Meaning, perhaps they should be given the benefit of the doubt as to their guilt. 
 

I do subscribe to Tidal with their HiFi option, essentially Redbook standard, and for 20 clams a month in Canada think it’s a great value. And, not having any other options it’s Tidal by default for any decent sound quality. 
 

Who know the type of pressure that could have been brought to bear against Tidal by the music labels?  It’s not hard to imagine a conversation where someone says “We’re agreed then, all highres tracks will be MQA versions.”

 

 

 

 

 

This is the problem. You are of the understanding that the HiFi tier is lossless Redbook CD quality FLAC. It's not. It's lossy MQA-CD disguised as FLAC.

 

HiRes is a loose term with no real definition but FLAC by definition stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. https://xiph.org/flac/

 

It doesn't say that it's a garbage container to disguise mp3, MQA or any other lossy codec as an attempt to deceive its customer.

 

It's a lie and false advertising.

 

[Daren F]

49 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

 

I would never subscribe to Tidal as long as they are supporting MQA.

It is truly a sad state if Tidal is your only option in Canada.

Tidal has gotten up with fleas.

 

There's also Deezer HiFi and Amazon Music HD. Qobuz is the only one missing that offers CD or better quality.

[Daren F]

10 hours ago, firedog said:

 

And when they get fined, let me know....

They claimed MQA was lossless (still do, sometimes). Did anything happen?

 

Where are the audiophile lawyers when you need them?

 

The developers of FLAC should have a cease and desist letter issued to Tidal/MQA instructing them to stop marketing their garbage as FLAC.

 

FLAC's intent was to provide a free compression algorithm for PCM. It wasn't developed so that Tidal/MQA could mislead and lie to their customers, disguising MQA as FLAC and then (supposedly) profiting from it.

 

[Daren F]

16 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

 

Is there MQA without Tidal?

Is there Tidal without Roon?

Perhaps it is time to scrutinize Roon.

 

I suspect that these guys are all in bed together.

 

MQA produces the product.

Tidal distributes the product.

Roon provides the means to consume the product.

 

 

[Daren F]

Does anyone know if Audirvana has to pay MQA for each core decode similar to Roon?

[Daren F]

10 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Why don't we just say that MQA is dead! Let that permeate the internet. That should translate to less sales.

 

Is Tidal going to go down with the sinking ship?